JOHN GREATHOUSE: Timehop, a photo app with over 16 million users, recently executed a radical experiment. It closed its New York City office for two weeks and made all of its employees work remotely, preferably not from their homes. Many of the employees took off for exotic locales. I heard about the experiment from co-founder Jonathan Wegener over dinner in Santa Barbara. I asked him how it went and he laughed and said, “I’ll tell you when it’s over. This is the first week of the test.” Intrigued, I followed up several weeks later to learn how Timehop’s bold initiative turned out. Spoiler: It failed, but the company learned a ton in the process. What follows are edited excerpts from our conversation. … Read More »

Jay Samit, serial entrepreneur: The only real failure in business is when you accept that the odds are against you before you begin, and therefore accept defeat before you even try. We live in an era of nearly constant innovation. To survive in today’s fast-paced economy, every employee and founder needs to disrupt how he or she thinks and learn to embrace the knowledge that is gained from failing. The faster you fail, the faster you will succeed. Having had the privilege to work with some of the most successful entrepreneurs on the planet, the one indisputable truth I can impart is that at the end of your career you will have more regrets for the things you didn’t try than the ones you tried and didn’t succeed at. … Read More »

KEVIN COLLERAN: If you are one of the many aspiring entrepreneurs who have taken the leap and started your own business only to eventually fail, fear not, there is an upside that you can take away from the experience. Instead of obsessing about the negative aspects of failure, you should instead focus on the often stated but rarely believed lessons that failure makes you stronger, and increases your chances of future success. If you have failed previously in a business venture, you are lucky because your chances of success the next time around have increased. The more attempts you make and the more ‘at bats’ you get will only increase the likelihood of eventually hitting a winner. The key is to make sure you don’t give up and abandon that entrepreneurial dream before you have a chance to find your success. In the end, the payoff of your determination will be worth it. … Read More »

ELAINE WHERRY: If you’re considering an accelerator, you’ll better understand if a program is a good fit by asking a few questions. Who are the program’s investors? When does the program expect to make a return? Will your startup receive the entire investment or will some of those funds become part of a program fee? Does the accelerator have a target market or investing strategy? Why does the accelerator think your team is a good fit? In the best-case scenario, accelerators bridge the needs of two communities; investors gain access to promising new teams and early startup teams gain the structure and network to launch a company. In the worst-case scenario, entrepreneurs throw away valuable equity for empty promises. The difference depends upon the specific accelerator and how the team takes advantage of those opportunities. … Read More »

Sujan Patel, Vice President of Marketing at When I Work: When you’re first starting out as an entrepreneur, it can feel like you’ve started driving a car towards a certain destination without a map or GPS to help you along. Having a mentor can help you navigate your business journey, but finding one on your own can be difficult and time-consuming. Well, guess what? Accelerator programs have these valuable connections built in. When you sign up for a program, you’ll find yourself surrounded by successful entrepreneurs who can share their valuable wisdom and help you on your path. You may even find that your chosen program brings in people from the local tech and business communities to offer you helpful guidance. … Read More »

Jayson DeMers, founder and CEO of AudienceBloom: Without the numbers necessary to form insights about the true impact of startup accelerators, it’s difficult to say whether they’re a positive, neutral or negative force in the context of a regional economy or entrepreneurial landscape. To be sure, there are dozens if not hundreds of successful entrepreneurs today who attribute their success to accelerator programs and hundreds of enrolled entrepreneurs grateful for the opportunity. But with the lack of sustainability for the programs, the lack of diversity and longevity of their mentorship programs and the difficulty of measuring “true” economic impact, one has to wonder whether there’s a better type of program out there. … Read More »

John Roa, founder and CEO of ÄKTA: One popular myth about startups is that you need external capital to experience rapid and high growth. But contrary to what you may have been told, entrepreneurs can actually yield exponential returns on their investment if they decide to bootstrap. Bootstrapping gets a bad rap because most people are risk-averse and will find the idea of bringing in investors to help shoulder the financial burden more appealing. However, people who are comfortable taking risks, upon looking closer at what external funding entails, may not find the capitalization model very enticing. Sharing key decision-making roles, creative control, profits and overall ownership of your company go against the reasons why anyone would want to start their own business in the first place. … Read More »

Jay Samit, serial entrepreneur: In 1980, there were only 12 startup incubators in the entire country, today the number exceeds 1,250 and continues to grow. Some incubators, like Y Combinator and TechStars, were started by successful entrepreneurs wishing to help the next generation learn from their experiences. Other programs, such as Viterbi Startup Garage and Austin Technology Incubator, were created by universities to help young entrepreneurs bridge the knowledge gap from student to funded company. Other programs around the globe are funded by local and state governments to spur job creation and knowledge-based economics. With such a range of programs, founders need to know the advantages and disadvantages of each type of incubator. … Read More »

Jonathan Axelrod, co-founder of Entrepreneurs Roundtable Accelerator: The team behind an accelerator has the most impact on a company’s experience in the program — this includes the partners and staff who run it day-to-day and the mentor network surrounding the program. These are the people who will be working with you in the trenches to help your company succeed. When possible, you should go meet the team and people and startups that have worked with them. Make sure they’re the ones you want to work with to build your business. Check that the mentor network and community surrounding an accelerator have the strength and experience in industries and functional areas you care about, including relevant geographies. … Read More »

David Ramadge, Director of Entrepreneurship at eBay: Alternative financing like crowdfunding can take a great idea from obscurity to celebrity in a matter of weeks. But the leap from prototyping to manufacturing, managing supply chains or even the basic blocking and tackling of running a profitable business, breaks more young companies than makes them. I see this challenge every day at eBay, where I work with entrepreneurs and budding startups who are looking to convert demand (and hype) into meaningful sales and revenue. Many have just met their fundraising goals and are getting great early interest from Big Box retailers – so their minds immediately jump to how it will work when they’re shipping hundreds of thousands of units. But that future looks a lot different than the present – scrappily putting together marketing materials and personally hand packaging every item. … Read More »

About The Accelerators

For aspiring or actual entrepreneurs, The Accelerators is an online archive of discussion among startup mentors– entrepreneurs, angel investors and venture capitalists. Although the blog is no longer being updated, its content lives here and you can see an archive of its tweets through June 2015 @wsjstartup.